


anthem for doomed youth

by precipiceofyearning



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied Sexual Content (as adults), M/M, Relationship Study, i wanted hisoka and illumi backstory so i provided, smashing the canon with a sledgehammer until it looks the way i want it to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26692534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/precipiceofyearning/pseuds/precipiceofyearning
Summary: It is not difficult for him to fill in the blanks himself when a stranger, just as young and just as hungry, meets his eyes. Thin shoulders hunch over the corpse, and even thinner legs bend down into a squat as his hands hover in the air, pallid skin soaked in hot red, and Illumi finds himself speechless. Gleaming, narrow irises watch Illumi closely.“You’re strong,” the ashen-faced boy says without pause, an undertone of awe and reverence to his cadence. His upper body sways side-to-side as he stands up from the low crouch, a tongue flicking over chapped lips.What lies in the past and future for Illumi, regardless of the present. Can be read standalone.
Relationships: Hisoka/Illumi Zoldyck
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	anthem for doomed youth

The city lights are blinding, bathing the streets in light and steeping the alleys in shadow. 

Illumi’s Zetsu is a well-fitted sheet to his body as he slinks through a thicket of concrete jungle, through a labyrinth of twists, turns, and dead ends. He is still young, thirteen at the time, but not inexperienced—far from it, in reality, when he’s learned to kill before he could even spell his own name, and even earlier than that, conditioned to prepare for it. Before he learns to bleed and feel as any other, Illumi learns that he is a murderer. 

The alleyway is empty when he arrives at the side of his mark’s home. His target this time, a young, middle-aged woman, does not live very luxuriously, nor does she occupy a particularly secure part of the city. The Zoldycks—a tender fondness and pride swelled in his chest at the name—had almost universally been hired by important people, typically targeting other important people. This job seems a bit of an outlier, but the will of family is one Illumi is too naive and too loyal to question. In the brief, he does not receive much more than what he needs, and he does not care to put a story to a soon to be dead face. 

With a kick of his legs, the assassin rockets into the air to grasp onto a ledge on the brick wall. The wind whistles in his ears as Illumi slings himself in through the open window on the second floor with ease, his feet landing within the bedroom soundlessly. He lifts his head to inspect the room. The bed is aligned laterally and pushed against the wall to his left, the nightstand and drawer adjacent to each other. It’s just as he remembers from previous scouting, but the room smells off and the carpet feels soaked beneath his feet. 

Oh, and his target is facedown in the center of the room, gelid and still with a card lodged in her cranium. Although Illumi would prefer to believe that he’s above this now, the inexorable sting of bile is strong in the back of his throat as his gaze draws across the entrails, strewn about her corpse like a bed of flowers. Or the layer of lettuce beneath a whole roasted pig, dependent on perspective. 

It is not difficult for him to fill in the blanks himself when a stranger, just as young and just as hungry, meets his eyes. Thin shoulders hunch over the corpse, and even thinner legs bend down into a squat as his hands hover in the air, pallid skin soaked in hot red, and Illumi finds himself speechless. Gleaming, narrow irises watch Illumi closely.

“You’re strong,” the ashen-faced boy says without pause, an undertone of awe and reverence to his cadence. His upper body sways side-to-side as he stands up from the low crouch, a tongue flicking over chapped lips. 

Illumi ignores him and, instead, steps back to assess the situation. Malice bleeds off his body in droves, and he finds himself caught halfway between murder or a conversation, with a partial inclination towards the former. What keeps his fingers away from drawing the knife strapped to his thigh, or from moving in for a quick finish, is the intensifying onset of intrigue buzzing in his head because Illumi doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone quite like this, and to have interest in anyone else at all is a rarity in and of itself for him. 

“Hm. Her son, maybe? No, that doesn’t seem right, either.” The one in front of him continues, not discouraged in the slightest by the response, or lack thereof. “Who are you?”

Caught off guard, Illumi doesn’t muster much apart from a defensive, “None of your business.”

“Huh. I see.” The boy acknowledges with a nod, as though he had been given any sort of substantial information. His attention turns to the window. “Judging by your entrance, I doubt you were up to anything good—which is fine, I’m not one to judge, you know.”

_You have no place to, either,_ Illumi thinks to himself, but does not say, as his eyes drop to the gruesome mess on the floor. Instead, all he offers is, “That was my mark.”

It _was_ his. 

They seem to be on the same wavelength, but the elicited laugh is an airy, derisive one that grates on Illumi’s ears. “Are you mad, then? I stole your prey.”

_Are you going to do anything about it?_

“No. If anything, you just did my job for me,” Illumi answers, trying to keep his tone level. He starts to wonder if he’s being provoked on purpose, or if this is some sick attempt at making friends. Neither will work, not when he’s above both. Not when all Illumi knows and will ever know is murder, murder, murder. Professionalism shutters his expression, snuffs out the subtle flicker of excitement in his eyes. “You could have been cleaner about it, though. This is rather messy work.”

“Work? Hah, you’re a weird one.” He straightens and in the blink of an eye, Illumi finds himself faced with the knifelike point of a card; a four of spades, and a pair of even sharper eyes gaze through him. “Let’s see how well you can do your job, then.”

His face scrunches. “I have no interest in fighting you, at the moment.”

The boy scrutinizes him, and though all the excitement has left the tension in his body, Illumi can sense a naive curiosity to him. “Only in it for the money?” 

“More or less.” It’s an easier answer than explaining his family situation.

“Shame.” The card hovers in place for a moment with a persistence before it falls back to his side, disappointment written all over his pretty, painted face. Illumi idly thinks about how it would look better cut up and black and blue, but does not indulge. “I’ll pay you, then. When I do have the money.”

A raised eyebrow. “You’ll pay me to kill you?” 

“If that’s what it takes,” the older boy laughs as a spindly hand plucks the card out the body. There's a sickening crunch of bone as gold eyes lift to look back at him. “Well, if you can. Kill me, that is.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Illumi says, momentarily absent of his usual tact.

“It’s a joke.” His lips curl into a lopsided smile, and then he extends a hand. “Well? Deal?”

Jet black eyes stare at the raised hand. Gauging the strength of the other, Illumi can tell that the strength difference between them, for now, is enough that he would easily have the upperhand over the boy. Illumi is an assassin, programmed to be a tool of the underground, with a solid foundation of harsh training and clinical stoicism. He feels his judgment cloud, swept off his feet by self-fulfilling intrigue and the madness of the moment. Suddenly it’s hard to decline the offer, and something about the boy’s blood-smeared, manic smile strikes the cold rationality that had been so carefully instilled into him from birth, splits it like lightning. Like magic. 

He takes it, eventually. Illumi’s palm comes away slick with viscous blood, the print of his new client’s fingers scalding on the back of his hand, and he feels like he’s just made a pact with the Devil. “Deal.”

The grin on the other boy’s face broadens, the union of cracked lips splitting to expose pearly white teeth. “Pleased to be doing business with you, then…?”

“Illumi,” he finishes. “My name is Illumi.”

“Okay, Illumi. I’m Hisoka.” He straightens and turns on his heel, beginning to waltz towards the entrance, shoes tracking gore. On his way out, he throws a glance over his shoulder. The look on his face is mischievous as he gives a small wave. “I look forward to carrying out our little deal.”

Hisoka’s voice is light, songlike, and Ilumi finds that his heart rises to his name before he can do anything to stop it. Puzzled, he puts a hand to the back of his head, tangling it in the sheared, unruly locks. The frost in his demeanor thaws faster than he can help it, and there’s a new difficulty to maintaining his neutrality.

“Likewise, I suppose.”

* * *

Illumi is sliding the top of his pants over his hips when his partner sits up in the bed, torn sheets half-covering the lower half of the latter’s body. It would not be a bad sight at all, if Illumi had the time or heart to admire the view and instead, he throws a glance up at Hisoka, one eyebrow cocked as the other man snakes up closer. His arms come up around Illumi, pulling him snug to his naked form roughly. The touch possesses none of the tenderness of a lover, though Illumi wouldn’t know what he’d do in response if it did, or if he would even recognize that type of warmth. His immediate impulse would be, he thinks as calloused fingers wander over his scarred-up waist, to stick a needle down Hisoka’s throat. Or claw a hand through his bare chest, whichever would kill him slower, and Illumi loves to think about how he could kill Hisoka, comes up with more ways than he can count on his fingers, but the thought to follow through never once crosses his mind. 

Rough marks mar their bodies from their necks to their thighs, some bleeding and others bruising. Hisoka’s lips graze over the fresh grip marks on Illumi’s neck. 

“Leaving already?” He murmurs, his breath hot on milky skin where the pain blooms in bursts of dark color.

Illumi keeps his hands to himself and twitches a little as teeth nip the base of his shoulder. “Yeah. A governor in Yorknew has been acting up, apparently. Father phoned me last night since I was nearby.”

“Mmm,” Hisoka pulls away, eyes narrowed, but not necessarily disappointed. Neither of them ever stay for too long, anyway. He should have expected this. 

Illumi waits, anticipating an offer of accompaniment as he slips his undershirt over his shoulders. 

“Remember what I’d said all those years ago? When we met?” is what he gets instead, as Hisoka watches him with a disconcerting wariness to his gaze. Illumi chooses not to read too much into it. Sentimentality isn’t and never will be something he places too much importance on. 

“I tend not to remember useless things, no,” Illumi answers, a tinge of humor to his otherwise flat tone as he lets his hair down. It’s a little messy, but Illumi is more focused on getting out the door. He comes for what he wants, and makes sure to leave fast, because Hisoka is dangerous in far more than one way. He’s self-serving, for one. No room for anything in his heart other than a hand through it. 

Illumi’s the same, but at least he has family.

The Hunter raises an eyebrow, letting out an unamused scoff. “I told you that I’d pay you to kill me.”

Illumi doesn’t pay him any mind and pulls his vest over his shoulders. He takes on a sudden interest in the needles buried into the front of them, but only because he doesn’t want to listen. Only because maybe if he doesn’t answer, the conversation will end there. 

Persistence; it comes when he needs it the least. “I have the money.” 

“You’ve had it for years,” Illumi replies a little too harshly, eventually. The assassin levels his gaze with Hisoka, tilts his head as his eyes ask what his lips won’t. 

_What’s changed?_

Hisoka looks back at him, and even if it is the past they’re talking about, he can’t see that thin, wiry, depraved boy with wild pale blue hair from eleven years ago in Hisoka anymore. That boy is long dead, smothered under a mound of faceless bodies and a thousand other facades. Illumi wonders if he’s the last to see him, and the last to remember.

Hisoka sits back onto the bed, a smile of rare sincerity to his face. For a moment, it’s there, that foreign softness in his features Illumi can’t quite put a name or label to, when he shrugs the matter off. “You’re right.”

Illumi slides his shoes on. He starts for the door. “I’ll be going, then.”

“Take care.”

And the mutual understanding is that they will kill each other eventually. Just not today.


End file.
